Can we take action against sellers solicitors?

RockandGrohl

We are buying a shared ownership house and long story short, during the buying process which we are nearly at the end of, our solicitors requested 3 enquiries from the sellers solicitors. It took 3 weeks for them to respond, except they didn't actually respond at all, I ended up cancelling the request for 2 of the enquiries and then finding the information for the 3rd enquiry myself.

During these 3 weeks, our solicitors and the seller sent at least TEN requests to please obtain this information which were met with "We are working on it"

Clearly, they weren't as we had no movement from them for 3 weeks which has caused the seller to need to pay an additional month's rent, service charge, bills and mortgage and for us to pay an additional months rent which should not have been needed.

I've contacted the legal ombudsman as I believe that the sellers solicitors are not able to prove they were providing the contracted level of service required to progress the sale of their property. I'm just wondering that, as I'm not the one who took out the contract, whether I can even take action against them?

Comms69

No. Obviously not.

MinnieMouseEars

I can't imagine so. How do you know it was really the solicitor causing the delay? If the vendor thinks it was then they would be able to make a complaint, particularly as it has, arguably, caused them a financial loss

G_M

You are not their client. You cannot complain either to the firm or to the ombudsman.

the sellers could if they wished.

You don't say what the 'enquiries' were and hence where/how the solicitors would obtain the responses on which they were working. But it's possible
* it was the sellers who were not responding to their solicitor for some reason (and lying to you? Yes- it happens!)
* the local authority were taking time to reply to the solicitors/
* some other 3rd party was the cause of the delay?

Very often, all a solicitor can do is request information from others (as above) and then wait ("we are working on it") and they are hapless internediaries.

As for your extra months rent, well, you've saved yourself a months mortgage and rent on the shared ownership you are buying, so must factor that into your loss!